– If You See A Terrorist Say Something, FBI Warns After Busting ISIS Threat To “Kill President Of US” (ZeroHedge, Feb 25, 2015):
With the invasion of Syria, pardon, the “Islamic State” on behalf of US allies in the middle east imminent, it is time to send the fear meter to Max, and spook the US population with the reminder that far from being expert, Hollywood-quality video editors, ISIS is engaged in not only in selective, carefully sponsored and funded beheadings several thousand miles away, but is operating right under everyone nose.
According to an FBI announcement today, “a criminal complaint was unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn charging Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, Akhror Saidakhmetov, and Abror Habibov with attempt and conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a foreign terrorist organization. The initial appearances of Juraboev and Saidakhmetov are scheduled for later today before United States Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom at the U.S. Courthouse, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York. Habibov’s initial appearance will be held later today at the U.S. Courthouse, 300 North Hogan Street, Jacksonville, Florida.”
The charges were announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York; John P. Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Diego G. Rodriguez, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), New York Field Office; and William J. Bratton, Commissioner, New York City Police Department (NYPD).
As alleged in the complaint, Juraboev first came to the attention of law enforcement in August 2014 after he made a posting on an Uzbek-language website that propagates ISIL’s ideology. The investigation subsequently revealed that Juraboev and Saidakhmetov devised a plan to travel to Turkey and then to Syria for the purpose of waging jihad on behalf of ISIL. Saidakhmetov, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Kazakhstan, was arrested early this morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he was attempting to board a flight to Istanbul, Turkey. Juraboev, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan, had previously purchased a plane ticket to travel from New York to Istanbul and was scheduled to leave the United States next month. Habibov, a resident of Brooklyn and a citizen of Uzbekistan, helped fund Saidakhmetov’s efforts to join ISIL.
But a general threat wasn’t enough to push the fear factor dial to the max: Obama had to get involved too:
As alleged in the complaint, Juraboev was also prepared to engage in an act of terrorism in the United States if ordered to do so by ISIL, and Saidakhmetov intended to commit such an act if unable to travel abroad to join ISIL. In the August 2014 posting on the website that propagates ISIL’s ideology, Juraboev offered to kill the President of the United States if ordered to do so by ISIL. More recently, Saidakhmetov expressed his intent to buy a machine gun and shoot police officers and FBI agents if thwarted in his plan to join ISIL in Syria.
Sure enough, moments later both the FBI and NYPD have a message for you: if you see any suspicious-looking, murderous ISIS terrorists, say something:
NYC: FBI urges NYPD & Local residents to be vigilant for recruits & people who may carry out attacks in NYC report immediately. #Breaking
— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) February 25, 2015
It was unclear what a person, pardon, recruit who “may carry out attacks in NYC” looks like, although we are confident that just like porn, readers will immediately know when they see one.
In the meantime, neither the FBI nor the NYPD had anything at all to say about the close US ally in the middle east, Qatar, which has been instrumental in funding and arming said recruits. From the WSJ:
Qatar’s Ties to Militants Strain Alliance
Secretary of State John Kerry has formed a tight partnership with Qatari diplomats, using them as conduits for messages to Hamas in the Palestinian territories, to Afghanistan’s Taliban and to jihadist rebel groups in Syria and Libya, according to State Department officials. Mr. Kerry has lauded Qatar’s role in seeking to negotiate an end to Israeli-Hamas fighting last summer.
And yet:
Qatar also has given financial or diplomatic support to Mideast rebel groups, including some that seek to establish Islamic law or have ties to al Qaeda, according to U.S. and Arab officials as well as Western diplomats in the region. The support includes providing sanctuary to leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Qatar acknowledges.
For years, Islamist rebel fighters from Libya and Syria traveled to Qatar and returned with suitcases full of money, according to rebels who were interviewed and to Persian Gulf government officials. American officials said the U.S. has uncovered Qatari connections—such as involvement by members of the emirate’s elite business, religious and academic circles—in financing for Hamas, al Qaeda and Islamic State.
In September, the U.S. Treasury Department said publicly that an Islamic State commander had received $2 million in cash from an unnamed Qatari businessman. The following month, a Treasury official publicly criticized Qatar for failing to act against what he called terrorist financiers living in the emirate.
According to U.S. and regional Arab government officials, commanders of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s arm in Syria, began visiting Doha in 2012 for meetings with senior Qatari military officials and financiers. Nusra is fighting to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, a regional rival of Qatar.
The U.S. in 2012 tipped off Lebanese officials that a Qatari sheik, Abd al-Aziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah, was visiting Beirut to pass funds to Nusra, according to Lebanese and U.S. officials. A Lebanese official said that on one trip, Sheik Attiyah, who is a cousin of Qatar’s current foreign minister, was driven to the Lebanon-Syria border town of Aarsal and there distributed money for Syrian rebel fighters.
. . .
“The Qataris need to know they can’t have it both ways,” said Dennis Ross, who was Mr. Obama’s top Mideast adviser in his first term. “But so far, they see that they can.”
It is almost as if not the US but Qatar is doing everything in its power to topple Assad’s regime in Syria, and using the now official US war against ISIS as a welcome diversion to do just that, for reasons that regular readers are all too familiar with.
Of course, for the general US population, which can barely find Ukraine let alone Qatar on a map, this story is far too complicated, and frankly, boring, so it is much easier to just stick the terrorist bogeyman du jour, and tell America to be afraid of the guy with the Nutella…
… or risk ending up in one of the various democracy spreading “black sites” spread out across America, such as this one in Chicago.